Light weight tissue, such as facial tissue and toilet paper, is manufactured at high speeds of four to five thousand feet per minute or more. These light weight grades of tissue are formed, pressed and dried on a Yankee dryer. On the Yankee dryer, the tissue is removed by a doctor blade which crepes the paper, giving it resiliency and absorbency, after which the tissue is fed through a two-roll calender to a take-up roll. Threading the light-weight tissue from the Yankee dryer through the calender to the take-up roll is extremely difficult. From the paper former, the tissue web is supported by felt until it is pressed onto the Yankee dryer. After it is removed from the Yankee dryer, the unsupported web must be threaded through the calender to the take-up roll.
The normal threading process involves creating a tail, which is a five-to eight-inch-wide strip taken from the edge of the paper coming off the Yankee dryer. In the known method, this tail is blown through a tube threader which directs the tail through the open nip of the calender to a second tube threader which leads to the take-up reel. A problem arises because the tail frequently fails to transit the calender roller. This simple problem in threading leads to considerable inefficiency and additional cost. When the tail is created, the Yankee dryer is supplying a tissue web two-, three-, or even four-hundred inches wide at the rate or four- or five-thousand feet per minute. All the tissue which does not form the tail must be sent to the repulper. Any failure of the tail to successfully reach the take-up roll means that, as the jam is cleared and a new tail is sent through the machine, a sheet of tissue paper several hundred inches wide will be produced at the rate of over five-thousand feet per minute and will need to be repulped.
What is needed is a system for threading a tissue web from the Yankee dryer through the calender to the take-up roll with a high reliability.